The Thanksgiving Treasure

by Gail Rock

  I shrugged and came back to the table, and Carla Mae and I sat down to watch him.

  He looked over at us defiantly, as though he wasn’t going to eat while we were watching, so we wouldn’t have the satisfaction of getting the best of him. There was a long silence while he glared at us, and we stared back. He squirmed in his chair and grunted and looked down at the food and up at us and finally, he angrily grabbed a fork and jammed it into a hunk of turkey and wolfed it down as though he hadn’t eaten in days. He glared at us the whole time, and we tried to look pleasant.

  “How is it, Mr. Rehnquist?” I asked, after he had eaten a few bites.

  “Not bad,” he said grudgingly.

  “That’s my grandma’s famous chestnut dressing.”

  “Not bad,” he said again.

  “There’s not one store-bought thing in this dinner. I helped my grandma make that cranberry sauce. I grated the orange rind in it.”

  He looked at the jar and then stuck his finger right in and got a big glob and tasted it. Carla Mae and I gave each other a disgusted look.

  “I had it before,” he said. “My wife used to make it.”

  “Does it taste like oranges?” I asked.

  “Yep. Your grandma’s almost as good at cranberry sauce as my wife was,” he said.

  Then he reached into the sack to see if there was anything else, and he found the lump of wax paper with a carrot and two sugar lumps in it.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Oh, don’t eat that!” I said. “That’s for Marble Cake!”

  “Who?”

  “Your horse.”

  “What do you know about my horse?” he asked, looking suspicious.

  “Uh … we saw her …”

  “When was that?”

  “The other day,” said Carla Mae without thinking. “When we were here.” I gave her a kick under the table.

  Rehnquist looked at us sharply. “You the two I caught sneaking around here the other day?”

  “We had to sneak,” I said. “We were afraid of you. We’re not afraid of you now, though.” I gave him a weak smile.

  “Ya sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, and Carla Mae nodded in agreement.

  “Well, don’t be so sure,” he said. “I might shoot ya yet, if I catch you sneakin’ around here again.”

  “We have no intention of sneaking, now that we’re friends,” I said. “We’ll just come to your front door and knock.”

  “You stay away from my front door! Who says we’re friends?”

  “Well, aren’t we?” I asked. “We brought you this terrific dinner, didn’t we?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Well, because …”

  “Because why?”

  “Tell him again, Addie,” said Carla Mae. “You know, about the spirit of Thanksgiving …”

  I looked at him.

  “I’m a pretty smart old gink,” he said. “So don’t fool around with me, sister. Tell me the truth!”

  “I told you, it’s the spirit of Thanksgiving, and … I was worried about your horse.”

  “You’re worried about Treasure?” he said, looking at me curiously.

  “Treasure?” I said. “Is that her name? That’s nifty!”

  “What are you worried about Treasure for?”

  “She’s in awful condition, Mr. Rehnquist. She’s too fat. Someone ought to exercise her.”

  “I used to ride her when I had cows up to the north pasture,” he said. “Now I don’t have no cows, so she don’t get rid.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, “someone ought to care for her. Did you know that some people who have horses that need exercising actually pay someone to ride them?”

  “Well,” he said, squinting at me, “did you know that some people who got horses actually get paid for letting people ride them?”

  “That sounds backward to me,” I said, “but I’d be willing to exercise her for a fair trade in tadpoles and a couple of turtles out of your stream, and it seems to me that you’d be getting the better part of the deal … if you want to know the truth.”

  “Not so fast there,” he said. “Turtles are worth money. They get as high as ten cents fer ’em down at the dime store!”

  “That’s because they have paintings on their backs,” I answered quickly. “Yours are just plain.”

  “Why don’t you get that father of yours to buy my horse,” he said, “then you can exercise her whenever you want.”

  “My father won’t buy me a horse,” I said. “He won’t even let me ride one.”

  “Your father won’t let you ride a horse?” he asked, giving me a sly look.

  “Nope.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay, what?”

  “We got a deal,” he said. “You can exercise her if you don’t come around the house bothering me none.”

  “Honest?” I asked, not believing my ears.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  To make sure he was going to stick to it, I spit on my hand and held it out for him to shake. Much to my surprise, he spit on his hand too and slapped it up against mine and shook. I drew back my hand, all wet and sticky, and tried not to make a face.

  Then Carla Mae and I got up and cleared the table and gathered up the glass jars, because I knew Grandma would miss them. As we went out the door, Rehnquist said it was the best dinner he’d et in some time. He didn’t exactly thank us, but we decided that’s what he had meant to say.

  Chapter Nine

  I went back to rehnquist’s the very next afternoon. I leaned my bike up against the front porch, but didn’t knock on the door, so he couldn’t accuse me of disturbing him. I thought I saw him watching from behind the curtains as I went toward the barn.

  Treasure was standing quietly in her stall, munching hay. I had brought her carrots and sugar again, and when I showed them to her, she came right to me. I talked to her, and let her get used to me a bit, then I found a brush and started to work on her. She was a little fidgety at first, but finally settled down and seemed to enjoy being groomed.

  After that, I was out there almost every day after school and on weekend afternoons. I told my folks that I was going bike riding, which was partly true. Carla Mae came with me once or twice, but she wasn’t much interested in horses, and was still a little afraid of Rehnquist. Eventually she stopped coming with me, but swore to keep my secret.

  At first, Rehnquist had come out to the barn to see that I knew what I was doing, and then when he saw that I had the hang of it and wasn’t going to kill myself, he left me pretty much on my own. I arranged a nice little tack room in the back of the barn, with all Treasure’s things—brushes, liniment, saddle and bridle. Once Treasure was used to me, I saddled her up and walked her around behind the barn. As we got better acquainted, I rode her farther and faster, until we were galloping around like Roy Rogers himself.

  Sometimes I would come into the barn and Rehnquist would be there, rubbing Treasure’s nose and talking softly to her. When he saw me, he would look embarrassed and pretend that he had been talking to himself, and he’d suddenly get real busy with some chores somewhere else. I could tell the horse was a real pet to him, and that he missed riding her, now that he was too old.

  I always took my sketch pad out to Rehnquist’s, and would draw Treasure. One cold day I was sitting on the porch drawing, when I heard him playing his concertina inside. I wanted to go in and warm up, so I went up and knocked on the door. He grumped about how I was pestering him, but he let me in.

  “You do play your concertina, don’t you?” I said.

  “No!” he said.

  “I heard you!” I said, going over to the table where he had left it.

  “Hands off!”

  “I wasn’t touching it.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t!”

  “You don’t have to be so rude about it,” I said.

  He sat down with his face behind a newspaper and paid no more attent
ion to me, so I went over and showed him my drawing of Treasure.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Not bad.”

  I sat down in a chair facing him. “I’m going to draw a picture of you.”

  “Oh no you ain’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “Go home!” he said, irritably.

  “Just let me draw your picture!” I said, and started to sketch the outline of his face.

  He squirmed away from me in his chair. “Stop that …”

  “Sit still!” I ordered him.

  “You’re going to make some man a terrible wife someday!” he said angrily. “You’re too bossy!”

  “I’m not going to be a wife! I’m going to be a painter!” I kept on drawing.

  “When you grow up, you’ll get married,” he said.

  “Want to bet?”

  “How will I know if I win?” he asked. “I won’t be here when you grow up.”

  “Don’t sit so stiffly. Relax!”

  “I told you, I don’t want you to draw my picture!”

  “Now smile!”

  “Smile?” he said. “What have I got to smile about? I’ve got a lot of hard work here, and nobody to help me. People cheat me, you come around pestering me. What have I got to smile about?”

  “My father didn’t cheat you!” I said, annoyed.

  “Never mind about your father,” he said, and hid his face behind his paper again.

  “I can’t see your face,” I complained.

  “Go on home. I got things to do!”

  “Just let me finish this. I want to get the lines in your face right.” I reached forward and pulled the newspaper away.

  “Lines!” he said. “Wrinkles, you mean!”

  “Well, wrinkles are interesting. My grandma has wrinkles. She says they’re like a map … that all the things you’ve done in your life show on your face. I don’t have any wrinkles because I haven’t done anything yet.” I looked at him more closely. “Next time I’ll bring my paints. You have such blue eyes.”

  “Huh!” he said, raising the newspaper again. “Blue eyes!”

  “Put down that newspaper, please.”

  “Boy, you’re a bossy kid!” he said. “You remind me of a bossy little girl I once knew. She lived on the next farm when I was a boy. Pearlie Blake was her name. You’re a lot like Pearlie.”

  He put his paper down and seemed to be thinking back for a moment.

  “She was always bossing me around and getting both of us in trouble. I remember one time she was sassing her ma at the dinner table, and her ma sent her up to her room without any dessert. So Pearlie snitched a big plum out of the kitchen on the way up to her room. Then a few minutes later I come by outside her window and whistled up at her, and she was going to climb out the window. So she put the big plum in her mouth so she could use both hands to raise the window, and she just got her head out and bam! Down come the window right on her neck and she was stuck. She couldn’t get no leverage to push the window up from inside, and she couldn’t yell because the plum was stuck in her mouth.”

  He started to cackle at that, and I laughed too. It was the first time I had ever seen him even smile, let alone laugh.

  “I about died laughing,” he went on. “I finally went and got her ma, and she let her loose and give her a good spanking for it.” He looked over at me. “So you better watch your step, sister.”

  “What happened to Pearlie?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, sadly. “She moved away. She’d be old now, like me. Maybe she’s dead.”

  He seemed to be lost in his memories, and didn’t say any more, and neither did I. I kept on drawing, and he picked up his old concertina and began to play a sad little song I had never heard before. When he finished, he looked over at me and seemed to remember where he was. Before he could tell me to get out, I jumped up and showed him the sketch of him I had just done.

  “How do you like it?”

  “Ugly,” he said.

  “Would you like to have it?”

  “What would I want with that?” he asked. “Go on home, you’re wasting my time.”

  “OK, I’m going …”

  “And don’t forget to put Treasure in the barn and make sure she’s got her feed …”

  “I know, I know, I’ll do it.”

  “Well, see that you don’t forget … Pearlie!” he said.

  As he went to open the door, I left the sketch of him behind on the kitchen table, where he’d be sure to find it.

  The next time I was in the house, I saw the sketch hanging on the wall, all pasted down on a piece of cardboard, to keep it from getting wrinkled.

  When he saw me looking at it, he looked embarrassed.

  “Looks real good there,” I said, feeling rather proud.

  “Had ta get it out of the way somewhere,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said. “I thought maybe you put it up there because you liked it.”

  “Smart-aleck kid,” he mumbled. “Just like old Pearlie Blake.”

  “She must have been a lot of fun,” I said, thinking of the story he had told me.

  “Yep, that Pearlie was something,” he laughed softly. “We used to have the best times together. I remember her dad had a big old pig that was Pearlie’s pet. She used to ride him. She had an old wooden bucket that she took most of the staves out of and turned it upside down over the pig’s back and sat on it like a saddle. And she’d get on that pig and ride all ever the barnyard.

  “One Sunday we just come back from Sunday School together … all dressed up, and Pearlie’s ma told us to get changed into our old clothes before we played outdoors. Course old Pearlie never listened to her ma, so she just whistled at that pig and it come waddling out, and we both got on its back, and it took off running. Dumped us both right in the hog wallow. Oh, our clothes was covered! The worst thing you ever smelled.

  “Pearlie’s ma and pa came running, and I thought we was gonna be tanned for that, but when they saw us they busted out laughin’ so hard they couldn’t get mad. So Pearlie’s pa just took us over to the horse tank and got a bucket and threw water on both of us till the slop was washed off. Then her ma pressed our clothes out dry. She never did tell my folks, or I’d a got tanned myself.”

  He looked at me for a moment. “You sure remind me of her,” he said. “Smart-alecky as the day is long!” And he stomped on outdoors to do his chores.

  After that I would sometimes sketch him doing things when he was working around the house or the barn. I’d try to catch the line of his old body or the way he moved, and he would always shake his head and wonder aloud why I didn’t get tired of that fool drawing. But he always wanted to see what I had done, and sometimes he would say that it about looked real, which I took to be a compliment, coming from him.

  Meanwhile, I was going crazy trying to find enough time to sneak away from home and be with Treasure. I daydreamed that I could get Dad to buy her for me, but I knew it was just a dream. I made my usual big hints about horses at the dinner table every night. I wouldn’t dare come right out and ask for a horse, but I thought talking about it—lots of mentions of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Trigger—might help. I always left my Roy Rogers comics lying around in conspicuous places, and cut out all the pictures of horses in the Saturday Evening Post and put them on my mirror.

  My dad knew what I was up to and would make his own hints back, about how people who lived in town couldn’t have horses unless they wanted a horse sleeping in bed with them, and then I would casually mention that Billy Wild kept his horse in Haskell’s barn, which was very cheap. It was a rule of this game Dad and I seemed to be playing that neither of us ever mentioned directly that I wanted a horse. But I did ask for cowboy boots like Billy’s.

  “You never know when I might have a chance to ride somebody else’s horse,” I said, trying to sound practical. “At least I would be prepared with boots.”

  My father didn’t seem impressed. “It’s dangerous t
o go riding someone else’s horse. You never know what might happen.”

  Grandma chimed in. “Cowboy boots will ruin your feet.”

  “Oh, Roy Rogers wears them all the time,” I pointed out. “And his feet aren’t ruined.”

  “You’ve got to wear good, sturdy oxfords until your feet stop growing,” said Grandma.

  “My gosh, I’ll probably have to wear my oxfords to the senior prom when I’m in high school … just to make sure my darn feet don’t get ruined!”

  I got no further with any of my arguments, and I decided I should be happy that I had Treasure to take care of and ride once in a while. It never occurred to me that things might not go on forever just the way they were.

  Chapter Ten

  One cold afternoon I went out to Rehnquist’s and found Treasure loose, grazing in the front yard. I couldn’t imagine how she had got there, and I tied her to the porch rail and went to the door. I knocked, but got no answer and went on in. I called and heard Rehnquist answer from upstairs, but I could hardly make out what he was saying. I went up, and found him in bed, looking very pale.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Rehnquist? Don’t you feel well?”

  “No,” he said, weakly, “I’m fine … just resting.”

  “Do you have a cold? Want me to fix you a can of soup?”

  “No, no … I ain’t hungry.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t got the flu?”

  “No,” he said. “I just got a bad case of old age … there’s nothin’ you can take for that.”

  “I found Treasure loose in the yard.”

  “Oh, yeah. I went to see to her, and I just got to feeling so tired I had to come in and lay down.”

  “That’s OK, I’ll go and take care of her now.” I got up and started for the door.

  “Sit down and talk to me for a minute,” he said. “Treasure ain’t going anyplace. You like that horse a lot, don’t you?” I nodded and sat down in a chair near the bed.

  “I like her too,” he said. “She used to be the only thing I talked to around here before you came pestering me. I used to like horses the way you do, when I was a kid.”

  He seemed to be drifting off with his memories again, and I sat quietly and listened.

  “That Pearlie Blake I told you about,” he said. “Her father had a big old plow horse named Lucky. We used to take turns riding him. And in the winter, when he pulled the snowplow, Pearlie and me sat on the plow to make it heavy. Pearlie’s father drove Lucky, and we’d go to all the farms around to push snow off the roads. It was cold … I can tell you that! But Pearlie and me would be all huddled up behind that steamy old horse, and we’d be snug as a bug. Every farmer would give Pearlie’s father some hot cider to warm him up, and he’d give Pearlie and me a taste. The three of us would sing at the top of our lungs and laugh till we about split our sides. What a time! I think that bossy Pearlie was about the best friend I ever had.”